Monday, November 03, 2008

Strange Currencies...
















Global financial crisis.Credit Crunch.The Japanese yen has been on a roller coaster ride over the last few weeks.Falling and surging against other major currencies including the euro,the U.S dollar,pound,and the Australian and New Zealand dollars.
Back in August the NZ dollar was trading at 80cents to 100yen.Late last week it fell briefly to 49 odd cents.Quite a difference if you are sending some money home.Quite a difference relatively speaking to your income earnings.
Its difficult to know when is the best time to send it home.Wait a bit and hope it falls further or send it back right away and hope it doesnt drop further.Hoping either way you arent left out of pocket.Laughing all the way to the bank.Unlikely.

Its the same delicate balancing act when it comes to deciding to convert yen into currencies for vacations.Late last month the euro was changing hands at 136yen while early last week it fell to 122yen.With such volatility its pretty much a matter of guessing and hoping it doesnt gain or loss too much once you have decided to sell and buy.

3 comments:

Hansy said...

I can't believe the yen fell so low....I remember a time when it was about 98yen for 1.00 dollar. They were depressing times and everyone talked of the 80's when the yen was 50 to 1.00 dollar. And when it hit the lows, we were restricted by whether or not we had anything to send back and what day pay day was. Those were the days. The collapse of Nova brought a finacial collaspe for many young grads and the backlash is hitting the economy now. he he.
take care porcelain monkey

Tim said...

Thanks for your comments Hansy.I agree that the collapse of Nova had many unfortunate consequences.I was about to go on vacation when the "House of Cards" finally fell.In fact its taken over a year to get back to where I was and afford to take a vacation later this month.
Kind regards
huey

Anonymous said...

You may want to use an online currency calculator to check the foreign exchange rates.